Free Will
by Zerodone
Summary: A what if scenario in which Kerrigan somehow remains in control of herself after her infestation. How will the story change?
1. Chapter 1

Raynor didn't know whether it was fate, a trigger or pure coincidence, but as soon as he touched the big cocoon in the middle of all the others, it burst, splashing his visor full with Zerg slime. He managed to wipe the stuff off fairly quickly, but as soon as it was done, he immediately wished he didn't.

There right in front of him stood none other than Sarah Kerrigan, former Confederate Ghost, the strongest psychic human he had ever met and now fully infested by the Zerg.

"Oh god, Sarah," he whispered. "What did they do to you?"

Kerrigan still had a fairly humanoid body and her facial features were mostly the same. The first obvious difference were the bony wings on her back, which gave her a somewhat regal look. Her hair was now thicker and Zerg like, very similar to the Terran dreadlock hairstyle. Because they were no longer tied together, they reached all the way down to her waist and even a little further. Instead of the ghost armor, she now had a chitin plating covering her body, which seemed to be as durable as it was flexible. Finally, a little detail he noticed were some high heel appendages growing out of her feet. The perverted part of Raynor's mind told him that she looked pretty hot, but his military and currently dominant mindset was practically going into overdrive.

This wasn't the first time the Zerg infested a human, only this time it didn't turn the victim into a suicide bomb. It looked almost like the Zerg had turned Sarah into some sort of super soldier, a commando unit maybe. Given the vast psi potential, she possessed this was bad news for the Koprulu Sector. She already had been a force of nature as a Terran. Raynor could only speculate what she was able to do now that she was a Zerg.

Before his mind was able to process this any further, Raynor had the loud, booming voice once again, the same one he heard in the dreams he had these past weeks and just recently after he entered this chamber. He could still hear his men fighting the Zerg in the previous one.

" **Arise, my daughter!"** The voice of the Overmind bellowed. **"Arise...Kerrigan."**

 _Daughter?!_ Raynor repeated inside his head. He had no time to think about those words, as all of the sudden, three other cocoons burst open, revealing six Zerglings. Acting on instinct, he aimed his weapon at the first two and fired. They were dead around five seconds after being born. Just in time he managed to swing his C-14 Impaler around and got two lucky headshots in a row. However, that was also the time his luck ran out. The fifth Zergling managed to jump on top of him and slammed him onto the ground. The sixth one managed to grab his weapon in its mouth and pull it away. That didn't mean he was defenseless.

Strengthened by the servos of his suit, he managed to punch the Zergling off him, sending it flying directly into the wall. As the man tried to get up, he found himself pinned down by the other Zergling. The thing tried to bite his face off and was only stopped by the visor for a moment. That is the monster just smashed with its face through the glass. Feeling the cuts on his face, the rebel leader thought that it was over. But before the Zergling finished him off, it decided for whatever reason to stop dead in its tracks, with the mouth still open. A part of Raynor's brain registered that he couldn't feel the beast breathing onto his face, but he was mostly wondering why the thing hadn't killed him as of yet.

His silent question was answered by the Zergling being yanked away and revealing Sarah standing right in front of him. On one of her new wings was the dead body of the Zergling, impaled through the back of its head. The wing made a shaking motion until the Zerg dropped dead to the ground.

In the meantime, Kerrigan had her eyes closed, her body was leaning forward and she had her hand placed on her forehead as if she was experiencing a migraine.

"Sarah!" Alerted, Jim got up as fast as the bulky armor allowed him to do and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "Sarah, talk to me! Are you alright?"

"Nngh! Jim…" she managed to press out. The human was taken aback for a second by her new voice or rather the echo inside her new voice.

"It's okay, darling. I'm here. Take it easy." the man tried to reassure the former ghost. Judging by the expression, the infested woman must be going through a lot of pain. At least she still remembered his name, which was more than was seen by previously infested humans.

"Jim...you...urrgh!" She now held her head with both hands. "You need to get away!" She said quickly. "I'm….I'm losing control! ARRRRGGHH!" All of the sudden, the woman began screaming on top of her lungs and released some kind of shockwave, sending the man flying straight through the cavern and back into the one where the battle was still going on. Shooting, however, stopped on both sides, as soon as the shout ran throughout the tunnels. Raynor incidentally landed on a Hydralisk, turning the serpent Zerg to mosh upon impact.

"Commander!" Some of his subordinates tried to get to him but were stopped by a bunch of Zerglings standing in their way. The rebel leader had the unfortunate luck to land right in the middle of the opposing army and every single one of them had one expression on their faces: dinner.

 _If I die, I take some of you bastards with me!_ He thought to himself, grabbing his two remaining grenades with both of his hands. Before he could pull the pins, Raynor heard a scream, which he and every Terran in the Sector had learned to fear. An Ultralisk was running towards his position, like a dog who had not seen his owner in a long time. Only the Ultralisk didn't plan to lick him (unless it wanted to lick him to death), it wanted to smash.

"Oh shit." Was all he could say before the beast used the backside of its gigantic blades and sent the man flying through the entire cavern. He managed to get a glimpse of Sarah stepping through the entrance of the other room, before he lost conscious, due to the impact against the wall.

 **Hyperion Medical Bay**

 **10:54 Board Time**

"And that's all I can remember." Raynor finished his story to Matt Horner, his first officer and right hand on the Hyperion. The rebel leader wasn't wearing much, only the standard medical gown, which itched on some places. The man was also bandaged up around the chest area and on the back, as he had cracked at least four ribs. It was a miracle the man could still speak normally. Or maybe it was because of the painkillers, he wasn't so sure. What he was sure off was that their effect was starting to dim and he could feel his back acting up again. Raynor might be no medical expert, but even he knew that he would be bound to the bed for weeks to come, maybe even months. No one on the ship was really sure because they had no medical expert on board. Some engineers, some former scientists, former Confederate Soldiers, heck they even had a former Ghost on board, complete with the newest equipment available. But sadly, while almost everyone knew first aid, none of them was a real doctor. As such those who got themselves seriously injured often didn't survive to live another day. Or they survived, only to be left crippled.

Matt Horner sat in a small folding chair next to his Commander, worried but glad that the man was still alive. Even though the young man didn't know why exactly Raynor ordered the Raiders to come to this planet in the middle of nowhere, in the end, it had been worth it. At least Matt hoped so.

"So, mind filling me in what's been going on? You didn't accidentally spill coffee over my Jukebox, did you?"

Horner couldn't help but chuckle at the Commander's little joke. "Don't worry, sir. The Jukebox is fully operational and running." Although I really wish to know where that thing came from. _The first humans in this sector were prisoners! Did one of them smuggled an entire warehouse with them or something?_ Horner wondered to himself.

"As for your question...I'm not sure how accurate the information is, but here's what the men told me."

 **Char, Cave System**

 **12 hours earlier**

Seeing their Commander flying and screaming through the air would have almost been comical, if not for the fact that the rest of the humans would be next.

"Commander!"

"Shit!"

"Someone go get him!"

As soon as the man hit the ground, the Raiders opened fire again. Tons of small lead bullets flew through the air, hitting carapace, flesh, and stone. Two Raiders tried to make their way towards the Commander, but they were perfectly cut off, as the hordes of Zerglings made their way towards the Raider's position, closely followed by Hydralisks and a few Ultralisks.

"Fall back to the choke point!" someone shouted. "They're about to overrun us!"

Only reluctantly the Raiders followed the order. They didn't want to leave their leader behind but from the looks of things he was dead anyway. From what they knew the last thing he would have wanted was to get themselves killed over the slight hope that he might still be alive.

Only about a fourth of the remaining men and women managed to retreat, when something bizarre happened. They all had seen the infested woman stepping out of the chambers in front of them. They knew she must have been responsible for the scream, the shockwave and by proxy the most likely demise of James Raynor. The least they were expecting was for her to come jumping over the Zerglings, make a backflip in mid-air, land on the ground with her bony wings outstretched and facing in the direction of the Zerg!

"You're all going to **pay!"** She shouted the last word and leap at the Zerg front, perfectly slicing to two Zerglings apart with a swing of each wing.

"Holy shit!"

She proceeded to punch a Hydralisk in the face, followed by using her telekinesis to pull a few remaining Mutalisks to the ground. The blood splashed in every direction.

"Damn!"

Kerrigan sliced and diced her way through the sea of Zerglings, using both her wings and claw-hands, until she was in front of an Ultralisk. To everyone's surprise, she grabbed one of the blades with her hands and broke the entire thing off with, grunting at the exercise. The Zerg monstrosity screamed in pain and lashed out to its fellow Zerg until Kerrigan smashed the bladed into the creature's skull.

"Everyone with a boner, raise your hands now."

The former Ghost was far from done. She retrieved her weapon back out of the dead Zerg and proceeded to slash through the enemy ranks with her makeshift weapon.

"I'll give you 50.000 Credits for that!"

The dance of death continued, Kerrigan either using her wings, her weapon or sometimes her psi powers to get rid of the enemy. At one point she even caused the head of a Hydralisk to explode. The spines stored inside lashed out to the surrounding Zerg. Kerrigan remained undamaged somehow. At one point the Raiders noticed something very peculiar: the Zerg weren't fighting back. They were trying to retreat, be it through the back cave or through the lines of the Raiders. As soon as the first Zergling came to close, the ragtag rebel group once again opened fire, speeding up the process of Zerg elimination, until only one was left.

The Raiders eyed Kerrigan with mixed emotions. All of them recognized her, seeing as all of them formerly served under Mengsk until he turned out to be a split-tongued bastard. Everyone had at least heard stories of Kerrigan's exploits and some were even somewhat acquainted with the woman. Jim Raynor hadn't been the only one who was angry after Tarsonis. Many were friends with the soldiers that were lost that day. And now one of them had metaphorical come back from the dead, standing in front of them. Normally a reason to cheer, right? The only problem, she was infested. Yet at the same time, she just saved their sorry hides. No one knew what to do. Shoot her? Let her be? Take her into questioning?

"Jim!" Kerrigan exclaimed, running to where the rebel leader landed. Snapping out of their stupor, the Raiders in the front row followed her, until they were only a couple of steps away. The infested woman had open the Commander's visor and was seemingly checking his pulse. When she let out a sigh of relief a few others copied her motion, just realizing they had been holding their breaths.

The former Ghost pressed a sequence of buttons, completely ignoring the fact or maybe even not noticing that around twenty to forty fully automatic weapons were pointed at her. Some of the Raiders simply didn't want to take any chances. After one final button press, the suit armor opened, making it possible for Kerrigan to carefully retrieve Jim out of it.

"Shouldn't we do something?"

"I heard she can dodge bullets."

"Do you think she is going to infest him?"

All the talking stopped, as soon as Sarah had taken Jim in her arms, bridal style (a few marines snickered) and faced the Raiders directly. A few more weapons were raised, but no one dared to shoot.

Kerrigan regarded Raynor's troops with a neutral expression. Their faces were hidden through closed visors, but her telepathic abilities had already told her that the men and women were torn about what to do in this particular situation. None of them was really a leader of any kind. They were soldiers, simple as that. Give them a gun and an enemy and everything were fine. Give them a complex question about morale, twisted loyalties, Stockholm Syndrome or algebra and you pretty much lost them.

"I suggest we all leave these caves this instant," Kerrigan stated, her new voice sending shivers down the soldier's spines. "Unless one of you wants to end up on the dinner plate of the Zerg."

As if to make her point clear, a nearby wall collapsed and a group of Zerglings immediately made a beeline for the Terrans. Luckily this was only a small group. None of them came even close before they were all killed.

"Alright, boys and girls!" One of the Marines stepped up. Kerrigan assumed him to be a lieutenant. "Let's move out, before we end up as minced meat. Two lines, the wounded in the middle. And you." The man pretty much failed to keep his fear out of his voice, when he addressed Kerrigan. "Stay with me. You do anything, there'll be hell."

Kerrigan resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she focused on carrying Jim to safety while doing her best to ignore both the stray thoughts of the Marines, as well as the ominous presence, which she could feel ever since she was trapped in her cocoon. There were more than just one actually, but this particular one that called her "daughter" earlier overshadowed everything else. And it was watching her every step, like a military drone hovering above the battlefield.

As it turned out, the Raiders couldn't go back the way they had entered. And that was not because of the slippery slope at the end of the tunnel, but because a part of the tunnel had collapsed. The dead remains of a few Zerg could be found underneath the rocks.

"Looks like they tried to surround us, but caused the tunnel to collapse in the process."

"Man, lady luck must be really on our side today."

"Don't celebrate just yet. We still need to get out of here. Hey, you. You should know your way around, right?"

"No," Kerrigan replied dryly. "I have been trapped inside the cocoon up until a few-URRGH!" She almost dropped Raynor, when she collapsed on her knees. The Marines around her immediately raised their weapons at her sudden movement.

" _You will obey the Overmind, hatchling! How dare you defy his orders?! Kill the Terrans immediately!"_

"You can shove your orders up your ass, you stinkbug!" Kerrigan shouted. Her eyes glowed yellow for a few seconds, before returning to normal. Carefully she stood up, making sure she still held Jim secure in her grasp.

"What's going on?!" The man from earlier shouted, panic slowly making itself apparent in his voice.

"The Zerg…" Kerrigan breathed heavily. "They're onto us. We need to move, quick."

"Why should we trust you?" a female trooper ask. "For all we know, you might just lead us to them."

"Quit the bullshit, Sanchez." The current leader of the squad spoke. "She could have killed us earlier, but didn't. She actually fought against the Zerg and not with them. She could have kicked our asses, but did not! Now get a move on scumbags or I'll present you personally to the Zerg in form of an Umojan Stew!"

The expedition continued through the dangerous caverns, but luckily without any worth mentioning incident. The Zerg couldn't properly attack the Raiders, as the caverns were too narrow. Digging seemed to be a bad idea as well for the insects since the tunnels appeared to be unstable.

After two hours of running through narrow tunnels, avoiding lava pits and finding dead ends, the Terrans finally managed to get out of the cave system. Once outside, the leading man contacted the Hyperion.

"Contacting Hyperion. Captain Horner, can you hear me? This is Lieutenant Rodriguez."

"Rodriguez, this is Captain Horner speaking. What is your status?"

"We have...completed the objective, but suffered casualties. Around a third of us are wounded, one of them being Commander Raynor."

"WHAT?! What is the status of the commander?"

"I'm not sure, sir. He got smashed against a wall by an Ultralisk. He's breathing, but as I said, he's also out cold. I'm not sure if he'll survive the trip back to the shuttles."

"Roger Rodriguez. I'll be sending the shuttles to your coordinates. Lieutenant, you mentioned you completed your objective. Does this mean you've freed the prisoner the Commander spoke off?"

"Y-yeah, we did sir. Though you might you want to get the Quarantine Bay ready, sir. She's been...exposed to the Zerg for a long time."

"...I see." Horner eventually answered. Rodriguez could only imagine the confusion the Captain must be going through. Hell, the Commander didn't even tell anybody where he got the intel about the prisoner.

"Do we have a name for the person?"

"Yes sir. It's Lieutenant Sarah Kerrigan."

 **Hyperion, High Orbit around Char, Medical Bay**

 **11:22 Board Time**

"Imagine my surprise, sir. I have personally never met the Lieutenant, but like everyone else heard about what happened back on Tarsonis."

"So she's really here? Aboard?" Raynor asked in disbelief.

"Yes, sir," Horner replied a bit nervously. "She has been...very cooperative. Though that could mean anything. Sorry, sir."

"Don't be." Raynor waved off. He could hardly believe it. Sarah was still alive, saved his troops from the Zerg and was now on board the Hyperion! For all accounts, he should be happy. If not for one particular detail. "You suspect she's somewhat of a sleeper, right?"

Horner nodded reluctantly.

"I understand." Raynor sighed. "She's the first infested Terran still showing any signs of free will," he said dryly. "For all, we know she might just be pretending to be on our side for now, in order to get us and by proxy other worlds infested."

Matt nodded once again. His commander had taken the words straight out of the younger man's mouth.

"But that's not all sir. The guards in front of her cell all reported that she is talking to herself. She says things like: 'I won't let you control me. Get out of my head. I will not obey.' Repeatedly. It almost looks like she's fighting a mental battle with another telepath. Even more worrisome is that so far she has not touched any food or water we provided her with. And she hasn't been sleeping at all."

"Damn." Raynor breathed out. He massaged his temples, trying to process the information. That's when he remembered something. Something that certainly explained a part of the weird dreams he'd been having for these past weeks.

"I just remembered...Mengsk scientists speculated that the Zerg have some sort of...what's it called?"

"Hive Mentality?" Horner offered. "I read the reports in the archives. The theory is that it works similar to a beehive or an ant farm. That there is one queen at the top, pulling all the strings. Some say it's one big Overlord controlling everything, since there have been sightings of Zerg going rogue, after a decent amount of Overlords were shot down."

"Yeah, it went something like that." Raynor nodded. "So, Kerrigan is fighting off whatever is trying to control her."

"And if she loses this battle?" Horner asked worriedly.

Jim looked out of the window, frowning. The red planet Char stared back, seemingly taunting the rebel leader.

"Simple, we won't let it happen," Raynor said as a matter of fact.

"Uh sir, I hate to break it to you, but I doubt we can defeat the Zerg forces with our own."

"I didn't say anything about kicking some Zerg ass, Matt. Whatever this thing is, it needs its Overlords to relay its orders. Which mean it has a limited range and capability to ordering the Zerg." Raynor looked straight at the man. "All we need to do is avoid the Zerg until we find a way to reverse what the virus did."

"Reverse what the virus did?" Horner echoed. "Sir, we have no one with the right expertise to find a cure. Not to mention the equipment and resources we would need to stock up…"

"Well, then we better get started. By the way, Matt, remember the idea you mentioned a few weeks ago? I think we'll have a better chance of finding someone when we have some sort of HQ planet."

"Sir?" Matt needed to think for a second, before remembering what his Commander was talking about. The young man's face lit up immediately. "Aye, sir! I'll have a list of planets for you available in an hour."

"Good man."

Horner wanted to say something until his communicator started beeping. "Horner here. What? Now of all times? I see. Alright." The man deactivated his communicator.

"That was Jimenez. I asked him to keep an eye on Kerrigan, just in case. He wishes to see you immediately."

Jimenez was the former Confederacy Ghost on board the Hyperion. His abilities were invaluable to the Raiders since he was their only Ghost. Raynor could see why Horner sends the man to watch over Kerrigan. As a telepath, he might be able to relate to her in some way.

"Alright, let's get down there. OW!"

"Maybe I should call him to get up here, sir."


	2. Chapter 2

**nHyperion Medical Bay**

 **30 minutes later**

The moment Jimenez stepped into the medical bay, both Raynor and Horner knew something was wrong. The thin man was barely able to keep his own footing, his black skin somehow appeared to be pale and he constantly ran a hand through his short cut hair.

"Lieutenant Jimenez?! Are you alright?" Matt Horner approached the man and led him to a nearby bed. "Come on, sit down and tell us what's wrong."

"Nothing...I can't handle sir." The man replied, his voice shaken. "I'll get over it, don't worry."

"Don't worry?" Raynor repeated. "Boy, you look like you got chased by an Ultralisk throughout the entire ship."

"Yeah and I feel like it." Jimenez let out a small sigh before continuing. "To explain my condition, sir, I've tried to get inside Kerrigan's head" the look his superiors gave him, told the Ghost everything about what they thought about this idea. "And well...the best way I can explain it, it felt like she's trying to hold back a fucking supernova."

Matt and Raynor gave each other a look.

"What exactly do you mean?" The rebel leader asked.

"I wanted to see what exactly was attacking Kerrigan. See if I could pinpoint what exactly attacked her so that we possibly could bombard it from orbit." The Ghost shook his head, a painful expression appearing on his face. "I have no idea how she's holding like she is, but I know she won't last forever. That...whatever it was, just slapped me out of her head, for the lack of a better term."

"What were you thinking in the first place?!" Matt Horner exclaimed. "We know so little about the Zerg, they might have killed you!"

"Well, someone had to do something!" Jimenez retorted. "I'm the only one on this ship who knows something about psionics!"

"Hey, hey, cool down, both of you!" Raynor interjected before things possibly went out of hand. "Whether this was a brilliant or a stupid idea is debatable at this point. Jimenez, you came here because you have something to say to us. So spit it out already! What do you have in mind?"

Jimenez took in a deep breath, calming himself down. "As I said, it's practically a miracle that Kerrigan is not being overwhelmed right now. However, I don't think that she'll last. I would say we get away from this planet as fast as possible."

"Hmm..." Matt put a hand under his chin. "The warp engines will need some time to warm up. Not to mention the hours it takes to calculate our new destination. We'll be vulnerable to attacks from both the Protoss and the Zerg. General Duke's Battlecruiser is still in High Orbit around Char, but given the losses he's obviously taken, he won't be much of a threat to us. Unless he decides to ram the Norad III into the Hyperion. Given the man's temper, I'd say it's entirely possible."

Raynor chuckled. "Ah, I don't think even he's that crazy. I haven't insulted him enough for that to happen."

"Sirs?" Jimenez tried to get the attention of his officers back. "While we're waiting for the ship to be ready, I'd suggest we increase Kerrigan's fighting capability."

"Increase how?" Raynor asked.

"It's simple, really. Though the effects will be significant." The Ghost made a small pause before continuing. "You see, during our Ghost training, our minds will be pushed to our absolute limits. "Training purposes" as those scientists called it. It was actually also part of our mental conditioning, in order to turn us into living weapons. This process also damages our minds in a way, so we don't get too powerful and break our mental conditioning. However, the damage is not irreparable."

"So you suggest we repair the damage?" Horner asked.

"Yes, though we would need direct access to an old confederacy data storage. And guess who was stationed around such a storage facility? And guess where it is right now?"

"You gotta be shitting me." the rebel leader swore. "Here? Around what's obviously the home planet of the Zerg?"

Jimenez nodded. "Before Mengsk...recruited me, I was stationed here as a simple guard. As far as my knowledge goes, the Confederacy found the Zerg here and started experimenting on them. Not sure why the Zerg didn't shot the thing down as of now, but hey. Better for us. Though I'm sure they're all working for Mengsk now. So, we'll have to fight, that's for sure."

"Hmm..." Raynor looked to the side, thinking about the suggestion.

"One more thing." Jimenez raised. "Kerrigan will have to come with us."

"WHAT?!" The other two men in the room exclaimed.

Jimenez gaze hardened. "Any attempt to copy the data will lead to immediate termination of the hard drives it's stored on. Even if I break my own conditioning, I won't be able to help Kerrigan. It's hard to explain to a non-Ghost, but she will have to come with us."

"Can't we just leave this planet?" Horner asked. "Even the Zerg have a limit, surely."

The Ghost shrugged. "Sure, though I'm sure whenever we encounter Zerg, they'll try to take control of her all over again. And it doesn't look like those fuckers are done with our worlds just yet."

Raynor and Matt looked at each other once again.

 **Hyperion, Quarantine Area**

 **12:14 Board Time**

The Marines watching over Kerrigan, turned their heads when they heard the elevator doors opening. They weren't particularly surprised to see their leader, sitting in a wheelchair and rolling out of the said elevator.

Raynor stopped his movements when he was positioned in between the two marines. He looked directly through the looking glass and at Kerrigan's meditating form.

"She hasn't moved an inch, ever since we put her in." One of the guards informed him. "Sir, are you sure we shouldn't just shoot her."

"She's the first infested who stayed sane. If we bring her to the right person, there might be a chance we find a cure for that virus and help the people in the long run."

"You so rehearsed that line in front of a mirror." the other marine commented.

"Guilty as charged," Raynor smirked "though I had to do it without the mirror. I used the screen on the elevator panel."

The two marines chuckled at those words.

"Give us ten minutes," Raynor told the other two in a more serious tone.

"Sir, are you sure?"

"Just cut off the air supply, if you see anything going on through the cameras. And just to be sure, burn the place down."

The two marines looked at each other for a moment, before they complied with the order and went into the monitoring room nearby. As soon as the doors closed, Raynor rolled towards the glass and pressed a button on a console.

"This is a bad idea, Jim," Kerrigan said without even opening her eyes.

"Hey, remember the talk we had about reading my mind like this?" Raynor asked.

"Jim, this is serious. This is exactly what that thing wants. It wants me to become stronger, Jim. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to fight back."

"Come on, Sarah. You're having a conversation with me while holding back this what's-his-name? Overmind?"

At this, Kerrigan opened her eyes, surprised. "How do you know it's named?"

Raynor shrugged. "I'm...not really sure. I just had these...dreams. I was trapped inside...something. There were those shadows that looked like Zerg, but different. And sometimes...I could hear it talk. When we landed on Char I could somehow tell where you're, as if you had a tracking device with you. And when I was inside the cave, I could hear it talk again...after you, you know..." He looked uncomfortably to the side.

"I...see," she said slowly, casting her eyes down. "Jim...you know what you need to do. If I lose control-"

"Enough of this bullshit already." Raynor slammed his fist against the controls. "You're the toughest Terran in the entire fucking sector, Sarah. Believe me, I have met a lot of tough bastards in my life, but you top them all. There's no way Mr. Buglord is going to take control of you."

Sarah snorted and laughed really loud and for a long time. So long in fact that Raynor himself chortled a little.

"Come on, darling. It wasn't that funny."

"It's...it's not that." Sarah struggled to breathe. "It's...the Overmind apparently doesn't like being called by that name."

"Does Cockroach Pope sound better? Cock-Pope, maybe?"

Kerrigan guffawed, losing her meditation position.

"I-I think you broke him, hahaha."

"Hehe, ah I knew I should have gone into the comedy business."

"You, a comedian? They'd throw you into a pit full of Zerglings before your first performance is over."

"Is that an idea from Mr. Buglord?" he asked half-serious.

Kerrigan finally caught herself and took in some deep breaths in order to calm down completely. "In all seriousness, though, there's no way for us to find a cure to this virus. I'm a danger to all of you and you know it."

"So what? You're a looker at least, so there's our compensation."

Kerrigan looked at Raynor with a serious expression. "You pig."

"Well, can't deny it, why not embrace it?" Raynor asked with a shrug.

"Urgh, you're an impossible man, Jim Raynor. There's no way I can convince you, can I?"

"You already know the answer to that."

Kerrigan sighed. "Fine. But if I go on a rampage, I'll make sure to cut off your balls first."

"Duly noted."

 **Hyperion, Hangar Nr. 2**

 **13:00 Board Time**

"Alright, listen up," Jimenez spoke to the Marines and Firebats standing ready in front of the drop ships. "We'll be leaving this planet in a couple of hours, but we need to do something first. As you all know, Kerrigan has been infested, yet somehow she's still holding on to what humanity is left in her. However, that won't last forever." The Ghost tried to ignore the worried thoughts going through all of the rebels. Not easy, since he couldn't just shut off their surface thoughts. "In order to prevent her from butchering us, we need to make sure she stays herself. The only way to do that is to get important data from the Ghost Program, so we can repair whatever damage has been done to her mind during the training. There's a catch to that, however. The storage devices are rigged in a way that copying or removing them will cause them to explode. And none of us can possibly remember all of the stuff that's written there, so we have no choice but to take Kerrigan with us."

"What?!"

"Are you insane?!"

"She's gonna-"

"SHUT IT, ALREADY!" The Ghost shouted. "Look, Kerrigan is the reason we even got so far with our revolution. If Mengsk wouldn't have been such an asshole, we'd be all living a better life as of now and she wouldn't be what she is now. Besides, she every single one of your asses down there including the Commander's. It's-"

"That's enough, Lieutenant." Everyone turned their heads and some even readied their weapons, when they found Raynor and Kerrigan approaching the people. Raynor, of course, being forced to sit in the wheelchair. "If you have a problem with the mission, you can stay here. No one forces you to come along. I won't hold it against you. I also won't hold it against you if you plan to leave after this is over."

He looked over all men and women while speaking. Kerrigan had an impassive expression on her face.

"We're on a strict timetable here, folks. Everyone who doesn't want to go leaves the hangar now. The ship leaves in five minutes."

In the end, only two people left. No one was scorning at them or something similar. When it came to Raynor's Raiders, you weren't forced to participate in a mission. Mengsk technically had the same policy, for a time at least, as he had a way of talking people into things. Jim Raynor just told them the facts of the mission and nothing more. Just like he did before they went to Char. He had told them that they were on a rescue mission and that there was a high chance of them dying while trying. And they almost did die, the leader included.

"Listen up." Jimenez brought everyone out of their thoughts. "The Amerigo has a lot of defensive measures, in case of someone unauthorized trying to get in. Expect hidden sentry guns, armored vehicles, enemy Ghosts and even captured Zerg. I haven't seen anything bigger than Hydralisks in there, but that might have changed. Be on your guard in there."

 **Amerigo**

 **21:00 Board Time**

Because the dropships couldn't just land inside, the Raiders had to get out outside the flying station. Kerrigan needed to stay inside the shuttle until the Raiders blew a hole in the station's walls and shot everyone in sight. Thanks to the surprise advantage, no Raider lost his or her life. After killing the guards in the hangar, the bay doors were opened for the rebel shuttles to get inside. After unloading Kerrigan, the pilots flew outside again, ready to pick their comrades up later. Else they risked being killed by the Dominion Marines. There were just not enough rebels present to guard the ships inside a Dominion facility.

"Alright, that was the easy part," Jimenez said after the bay was secured. "By now, the whole base is probably alerted. Keep your eyes open. The terminal we're looking for is in the middle of the station. Follow me."

Jimenez ran ahead, followed by Kerrigan and the firebats and then the marines. It didn't take long for them to encounter their first obstacle. Two sentry guns appeared out of the ground and almost shot at them, if not for Jimenez throwing an EMP grenade, rendering those things useless.

"Yup, they still haven't upgraded the towers. Seriously, those were supposed to get EMP protection years ago." The Ghost informed the others.

"How many EMPs do you have?" asked the Zerg woman in their midst. "Only four more. Not enough for all of them, but I remember where each and every one is stationed. Don't worry, I'll tell you when we come to the next ones, which will be around this corner, on the right wall. Marines, turn them into swiss cheese."

On his command, the blue-suited rebels formed a line in front of the rest and readied their weapons. The group approached the corner slowly, before swiftly turning around and opening fire, before the guns were even out. 3/4 of the shells missed, though it just took some adjusting to destroy the guns before they could open fire.

"Nice job, guys," Jimenez commented. "Let's go."

"Wait." Kerrigan stepped in front of them. "There are Ghosts further down the hall, waiting to ambush us."

"Really? Damn. They'll have the height advantage." the Ghost cursed.

"You can't sense them?" Kerrigan asked, surprised.

"I'm only a level eight Psion," Jiminez informed her. "They focused on my weapon training back at the Academy. Besides, you're like a sun next to a few lightbulbs."

"Uh, what are you talking about?" One of the firebats asked.

"You know these guys are psychics?" A marine spoke up. "They can sense people like a radar can sense enemy ships and the such?"

"Really? Wow."

"Have you been living under a rock?"

"Shut it, you two." The Ghost ordered his subordinates. "So, how many are there?"

Kerrigan closed her eyes and focused, expanding her mind towards the waiting Ghosts. The Raiders waited uncomfortably for the Zerg woman to give her report, some of them tapping the triggers of their weapons, while others kept watch on the hallways. By now the Dominion grunts surely must have identified them and sent troops to their position, ambush waiting or not. The soldiers were torn out of their thoughts, when they heard a series of screams coming from further down the hallway, sending chills down the soldiers' spines. What made the experience worse was Kerrigan's low chuckle, before the screaming ultimately stopped.

"What the fuck did you do?" whispered Jimenez.

"Do you really want to know?"

"...Fuck it. Let's get this over with." The Ghost shook his head and lead on, Kerrigan close behind. The others only followed the two reluctantly. The Firebats especially kept their distance from the bone wings, as they had seen what she could do with those.

It didn't take long for the group to arrive at the ramp Jimenez mentioned earlier. There they found no less than six Ghost corpses, blood, and some strange gray stuff leaking out of their ears.

"Damn."

"How did she do that?"

"Maybe we shouldn't do this-"

"If you won't shut your traps right this moment, I'm gonna personally launch you onto Char through the Yamato Cannon." The Ghost in the front threatened the others.

"Strike Team, this is Hyperion. Come in, Strike Team."

Jimenez hit the communication button. "This is Strike Team, Hyperion. What's up, Captain?"

"Things just got more complicated." Matt Horner informed the rebels. "The Zerg are sending Mutalisks and multiple Overlords to the Amerigo. We suspect the Overlords are transporting troops to infiltrate the station and capture Kerrigan."

The Raiders murmured among each other, clearly distraught over this new development.

"If the Zerg attack, the guards will be forced to split up, meaning we can get through faster," Jimenez concluded.

"Don't underestimate the Zerg," Horner advised. "We'll shoot as many Overlords as we can, but prepare for Zerg engagement."

"Understood Hyperion. Strike Team-"

"Wait a minute, Strike Team. We're picking up new contacts. Protoss transport ships are en route to the Amerigo."

"Are you fucking serious?" Jimenez groaned. "What are they doing here?"

"We don't know, but be careful. For all we know, they might have the same objective, as the Zerg."

"Understood Hyperion. Strike Team out."

The Ghost let out a sigh and looked over to Kerrigan. "Well, you got a lot of fans out there, that's for sure."

"No wonder with that ass. OW!"


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Fair warning, this chapter gets weird at times. Also the last lines at the end? That happened to me more than once.

"DON'T LET THEM GET ANY FURTHER!" shouted a Marine in clad white armor, opening fire. The rest of his squad quickly followed, raining down a barrage of bullets onto the Raiders, who quickly took cover behind walls, machinery and whatever else they could find. Unfortunately not everyone made it in time and some troopers got either injured or killed. First aid couldn't be applied, due to the ongoing attack. The Raiders shot back, but their enemies hid behind metal walls, which were risen from beneath the ground and also surprisingly sturdy. Luckily for the rebels, Kerrigan handled the enemies pretty well. Using her mind abilities, she lifted up a nearby construction vehicle and threw it over the wall, causing the enemy Marines to scatter, but only the ones that weren't killed by the weight of the heavy crane.

The firebats made use of the distraction and ran up to the enemy. The few Dominion soldiers who shot back didn't manage to penetrate the far heavier armor. As a result, the enemy was cooked alive inside their armor, with some face plate even melting off. The screams weren't pretty, but was there anything else to be expected?

"Great job!" Jimenez shouted, immediately using the opportunity to inspect a wounded man. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah…" the soldier hissed. "Can't feel my arm, though…"

"It's just the suit pressuring the arm. Don't worry, you'll live. But stay in the back, for now."

"No need to tell me twice."

"More of them are coming!" Kerrigan announced from the front. "Two of them are inside Goliaths."

"Crap," Jimenez muttered, reloading his gun. "At least they aren't deploying the Siege Tanks."

"Siege Tanks?" A Firebat exclaimed. "The hell do they need those for?"

"You don't know half of the stuff that's been done here," Jimenez stated. "You guys, help the wounded. And you get ready for the enemy. Sarah? Any way you could help out with those Goliaths?"

Kerrigan put a claw under her chin, thinking for a moment. "I think I have an idea. You boys better stand back." An evil smile appeared on her face, sending shivers down the spines of the rebels.

The raiders set themselves up while waiting for the enemies to approach. Kerrigan for some reason didn't hide behind the cover, but rather stood in the open for some reason. No one questioned why none of them would really miss her if she got herself killed.

It didn't take long until they could hear the heavy footsteps of the Goliaths approaching through the hallways. Soon enough the actual Behemoths of the Terran army could be seen approaching the position of the Raider's, with infantry coming straight from behind them.

"Target acquired!" One of the pilots shouted through the speakers. "Firing!"

Instinctively the marines all duck for cover, upon hearing the bullets coming their way. The barrage of bullets lasted for about thirty seconds until it suddenly stopped. Taking a risk, some of the marines looked around from their cover and their jaws literally dropped to the ground. The bullets didn't stop because Kerrigan or the surrounding walls were turned into switcher cheese (yes, somehow the term survived for 500 years), but because the bullets had been stopped mid-air. We're not even talking about the "small" caliber bullets out of a single C-14 Gauss Cannon. We're talking about the really big anti-infantry bullets that came out of the Goliaths. It was like someone had hit the pause button on a holovid and the scene was now captured in front of both Raiders and Dominion Troops.

The standstill didn't last for long. With a mental command, Kerrigan sent the bullets right back to their original owners. They were...less than thrilled to see their "presents" being sent back to them, but hey. Isn't that part of Christmas? Wait, do Zerg even celebrate Christmas? Does anyone in the Koprulu Sector even remember the holiday? Doesn't matter, the Dominion are all dead anyways.

Kerrigan walked ahead, seemingly unimpressed by the bloodshed she just caused. Their jaws still hanging from the rest of their faces, the Raiders followed suit, reforming their previous formation. The difference this time was that the wounded stayed in the back since their combat capabilities were reduced by a significant margin.

As they marched through the metal corridors, the entire ship vibrated for a couple of seconds. Kerrigan was the only person who actually felt the vibration, but there was still a pretty loud echo coming with the vibration.

"What was that?" One of the marines asked, stopping dead in his tracks. Another one stopped right next to him, while the rest of the troops continued on their way.

"Probably an explosion somewhere. Guess that means the Zerg and the Protoss are on board now as well." The man explained, before following the rest. The one who asked gulped audibly, before following as well, carefully stepping over the dead enemy marines.

Soon enough the corridor split up into multiple pathways, giving the rebel group three ways to chose from. Jimenez wracked his brain for a couple of seconds until he remembered which way to go and headed forward. For some reason, the Raiders didn't face any opposition, while they made their way through.

"I guess the Protoss and Zerg are keeping them busy." A firebat marine mused.

"No," Kerrigan replied immediately. "They have deployed their troops elsewhere. They thought we would be heading straight to the central computer or the bridge." the infested woman put two fingers on the side of her head, indicating she used her psionic powers to determine the position of the enemy.

"They must be thinking we're trying to take over the station." was Jimenez theory. He closed his eyes for a moment, checking the head of an enemy marine just a floor above. "Wow," he said, blinking in surprise. "At least some of them think we have aligned ourselves with the Zerg," he smirked, looking over to Kerrigan, who scowled in return.

"That's not funny."

"Depends on the context. Oh fuck, get ready guys. A whole bunch of marines coming straight ahead. Bunch of resocs."

A "resoc" was a criminal person who went through a process called "Neural Resocialization". To put it very basically, the government fries the brains of criminals and then pump it full of chemicals, including some additional brainwashing here and there to make "perfect soldiers". And that's only one method. Resocs follow every command without question and quite happily throw their lives away in the name of the confederacy or as of late, the dominion. There were drawbacks of course. Depending on the intensity and the form of "treatment", resocs had a hard time making situational decisions.

There wasn't any cover to be taken anywhere, so all the Raiders could do was point their weapons ahead and shoot as soon as the first white helmet could be seen. However, despite the warning from their Ghost, the Raiders didn't go out unscraped. They lost four marines and a firebat, during the short skirmish, because the resocs decided to storm ahead, weapons raised and firing on full auto. It was a behavior one normally saw when fighting the Zerg.

When the last enemy was out of commission, so to speak, the entire ship shook all of the sudden, followed by the sound of a distant explosion. Jimenez immediately hit his communicator. "Hyperion, anything going on out there we should be aware of?"

"Negative." came the response. "But our scans indicate that the Dominion forces are caught up in fights with the Zerg and the Protoss. That's all I can give you boys, sadly. Be careful."

"Understood." The Ghost broke off the communication and turned towards his men. "You heard the guy, it's a race now. We need to get to our objective as fast as possible and get out of here, before the aliens overrun this place. Let's go!"

 **At the same time on another part of the station**

Executor Tassadar or ex-executor, as the Protoss was sure the conclave already stripped him of the title from disobeying their order to return to Aiur, he called forth another psi-storm in order to deal with the crude Terran vehicles. Goliaths were mighty in their own right, but given the limited space inside the corridors, they couldn't properly aim their auto guns against the fast and agile Zealots. Plus their armor was considerable too weak, to withstand the might of even a single psi-storm of his. His own troops dealt swiftly and efficiently with the Marines, as the plasma shields protected the Protoss from almost any damage. As a result, the ground was only littered with terran machinery and corpses, blood slowly dripping out of the damaged power suits. The Protoss Plasma Shields would recharge over time, not fully until the next battle, but Tassadar didn't consider this a problem. He and his fellow templars could simply use their psionic abilities to give themselves an edge in combat, enough in fact, that the inferior technologized Terrans stood no chance. The Protoss weren't worried about the Terrans.

What worried them was the Zerg onboard this, in particular, the infested Terran Ghost. Every Protoss, from the Preserver Zamara (who was on board the Tassadar's ship) to the lowest Phaze Smith could feel the immense power that radiated off the former Terran. Tassadar could only speculate as to how she managed to get the Terrans under James Raynor to follow her, but the most likely situation was that they had been infested or/and were under mind control. Add to this the Zerg attacking this vessel as well and one could see as to why he chose to lead this mission personally.

With time working against them, Tassadar quickly walked ahead of his Zealots and Templars silently following him, their psi-blades ready to strike anyone that dared to block their paths. They didn't have to wait for long. A group of Space Marines and Firebat fighters had taken positions in the narrow corridor, perfectly blocking the passageway. A deadly mistake.

"Allow me, Executor." one of the High Templars "spoke" and Tassadar nodded. Said High Templar unleashed a devastating psi-storm, killing the humans in a matter of seconds, as the power armor couldn't really protect them from such high voltage. Screams and small explosions (the firebat armor) filled the hallway for a while until everything went silent again. The floor and walls got damaged from the storm as well. A damaged, high voltage cable was now hanging loose, the lights were turned off, but the red emergency lights immediately activated.

"We need to be careful, my warriors," Tassadar ordered. "Lest we destroy this vessel by accident." With those words spoken, the Protoss continued on their way, using the overwhelming psi-signature of the infested Terran as a beacon of sorts.

 **Section 14-B, around the same time (plus, minus 20 seconds)**

The Zerg used the same method as the Protoss to make their way through the ship. The advantage they had was their capability of using the ventilation shafts. Since those things practically led everywhere in the ship, the Zerg could avoid unnecessary battles and focus on the search for their lost queen.

Of course, the Terrans weren't entirely incompetent, but not that smart either. They tried to seal off the vents to specific sections, but the walls were so thin that the Zerglings had no problem biting their way through. If anything, it only slowed the Zerg forces down.

Still, that was more than enough to aggravate to yet to be named Cerebrate. He had solely been born for the purpose of protecting the newest addition to the swarm and already he had failed! If he had a more capable body, he would have strangled every single one of those blue-clad Terrans personally. Sadly, he had to leave this task to his troops. All he could do was coordinate them through the vast corridors, in order to complete his mission or else the Overmind would most likely end his short-lived existence.

Thanks to the Overmind easily seeing into the mind of the Terran leader, James Raynor, the Zerg knew the objective of the Terrans. Namely bringing the Queen to a special data storage on this ship, so that the Queen could repair the damage done to her, back when she was still a Terran and as a result would be more capable of resisting the calls of the swarm. The worst thing was that the Overmind decided that this was actually not such a bad idea, meaning for the Cerebrate he had to wait until the Queen fulfilled her objective before he could strike.

This didn't sit right with him, as he had already seen her in action, taking out several Zerg all by herself, including the almighty Ultralisk! He could only imagine the powers she would hold, once she reached her full potential. He would have to strike swift and decisively, which was why he was trying to avoid fights, in order to avoid casualties. Reinforcements were out of the question in this mission.

 **Objective Target, 20 minutes later**

"Sir, we're almost at the objective." A Sergeant Marine told the Hyperion through the communication system. "Lieutenant Jimenez is trying to get access through the blast doors as we speak. He says it will take a minute at most."

"Understood." Replied Raynor. "Be careful out there folks. So far we got lucky and didn't encounter any Zerg or Protoss. If you can, avoid engaging battle with the latter. I've had a brief encounter with their leader once. Hopefully, we can talk our way out of this as well."

"Uh...sir, no offense, but are you sure he will want to talk?"

"Not really," Raynor admitted. "I never told you to not point your weapons at them. I'm surprised they didn't decide to blow up the station, because of the Zerg infestation. Be on guard. And don't forget about the Zerg."

"Yes, sir!"

Just then a loud noise could be heard from the blast doors. Apparently, Kerrigan had gotten sick of Jiminez just endlessly typing on a terminal. As a result, she had decided to punch through the wall and take several cables out with her claw. Jimenez gave her a deadpan stare. However, it appeared to have worked, as the doors were slowly but surely opening.

"Sergeant! What was that noise?!" Raynor shouted through the com system.

"Ah, sir. It appears Kerrigan has decided to ah...help out with her...expertise in the field of infiltration...as in, she punched right through the wall and "manually" opened the doors."

"What?!...Ah, forget it. Get to the objective and then get the hell out of there! We're registering increased activity from the planetary surface and the Protoss are getting uncomfortably close as well. Duke has also readied his weapons, though we're not sure what he's aiming at. It could be the station."

"Understood sir. We're going in now."

"Good luck boys."

The communication ended, just as the doors opened wide enough for the Raiders to go in.

You know, fate is a funny thing, especially in written stories were literally the author decided the fate of each and every individual. Why am I breaking the fourth wall now of all times? Well, this author here decided that the fate of the Dominion troops was it to be surrounded from three sides by Rebels, Protoss and Zerg. Aliens and humans alike found themselves stopping dead in their tracks, not sure where to aim their weapons or claws. It was worse for the Dominion, as the Marines, Firebats, and Goliaths couldn't decide which enemy party was the biggest threat.

"Talk about a conundrum," Jimenez muttered, his sniper rifle aiming at a particularly nasty looking Hydralisk. He didn't know what, but something was definitely different about this particular snake. Was it maybe...bigger?

Kerrigan suppressed a groan coming up, from the ever increasing headache she was getting. "This is not good," she muttered.

"Executor, what should we do?" one of the Zealots communicated telepathically with his superior.

"We wait. Be ready to summon your psi-storms my templar."

The Cerebrate cursed his luck. Strategically he almost had it the worst. His forces consisted of only Zerglings and Hunter Killers, which had been provided by Daggoth. The Marines and High Templar would easily be able to decimate his forces before any of them reached the enemy. He needed a new strategy and fast.

And he had just the idea. His front row of Zerglings attacked, along with two Hunter Killers on the side. The Dominion, of course, returned fire almost immediately. This, however, had the effect of the trigger happy Marines of the Raiders to open fire. The Protoss, of course, joined in with their psi-storms, before engaging in close combat. With all of the confusion going on, nobody noticed the rear lines of the Zerg retreating back into the hallways.

The Dominion forces were dead in a matter of seconds, the Zerg joining them almost immediately. At some point during the fight, an over-eager marine or perhaps an over eager zealot had killed someone from the opposing species and now they were at each other's' throats. Marines and Firebats shot at the Protoss, who endured most of the fire and charged right in. Their psi-blades cut through the armor like a hot knife through butter and cost more than a few Raiders their lives. At the same time the shields of the Protoss weren't indefinite and sure enough, the first Zealots already disappeared in flashes of blue light.

Jimenez cursed, as he felt his mind being attacked by the enemy. He may be a Ghost, but compared to the Protoss, the Terrans had still a lot to learn about psionics. Not to mention that the general out of the mill Protoss alone was stronger than a highly trained Terran psycher.

Luckily for the Raiders, they had a trump card in form of Kerrigan. She proved to be a deadly opponent to any Protoss that tried to get a hit on her. Her wings seemingly had their own will and pierced anyone who tried to get into attack range. The Zerg woman stayed mobile, rushing through the open space the room provided and sliced up as many Protoss as she could. Their shields, of course, made this task a little bit more difficult, but she was getting support fire from the Marines. A little detail Tassadar noticed, as he decided to throw in his own psi-storm, killing of at least ten marines. The Executor decided that it was time to face the infested woman had own and charged at her with his own psi-blades.

Kerrigan managed to catch the arms of the Executor. She and the Protoss Commander looked into each other's eyes, recognition appearing on Kerrigan's face. "Tassadar, was it? Yes, I remember now, You were on Tarsonis."

Tassadar managed to free himself and took a step backward.

"I recognize you as well, Sarah Kerrigan. A shame that an honorable warrior like you had to fall into the services of the Zerg." To his credit, Tassadar appeared genuinely sad.

"Shut up!" Kerrigan barked back. "I don't have the time to deal with you! So how about you get lost?!" she shouted and charged at the Executor with a raised fist. Tassadar easily blocked the strike with his arms crossed and counterattacked. Kerrigan jumped backward, but her shoulders got grazed by the blades. She hissed in pain but looked determined as ever. She charged in again, this time with her wings raised. Tassadar prepared to block this attack as well. However, Kerrigan managed to take him by surprise when she quickly bent down and picked up a Gauss Cannon from a fallen Dominion Marine. There was no time for Tassadar to react before he was hit with a hail of bullets. Luckily for him, his shield absorbed the damage, giving him time to counterattack. Using his psi-powers, Tassadar picked up the corpse of a Marine and threw it straight at Kerrigan. The Zerg woman quickly jumped out of the way, but sadly it was the wrong direction. Two Zealots stood on her flanks and Tassadar was also there.

However, Kerrigan had a guardian angel in form of Jimenez, who managed to take out one Zealot with a headshot. Apparently, his shields had already been depleted. Kerrigan used the distraction to impale the other Protoss with one of her wings. His shields had not been depleted but were apparently weak enough for her attack to go through. The Zealot wasn't dead and by using all of his willpower he tried to cut her wing off. Before he could do so, Kerrigan tossed the Protoss through the room, until he hit the ground, where he stayed. It would only be a matter of time until he bled out. Raising her projectile weapon once again, Kerrigan shot the magazine empty, which was enough to deplete Tassadar's shields to a dangerously low level. That didn't mean he would just give up. With a mental warcry, he attacked once again. Instinctively Kerrigan tried to block the attack with her weapon, which got cut in half by the psi-blades.

Throwing the useless metal pieces away, the infested woman used her own psionic abilities to throw all kinds of stuff at not only Tassadar but all of the Protoss. The front line fighters were forced back but quickly took on formation once again. Tassadar used this opportunity to assess the situation. The Raiders had lost a significant portion of their forces but had still enough to put up a decent fight. His templar had received losses as well, but he was confident he could win against the Terrans. If he was willing to sacrifice a significant portion of the templar that is. Even without Kerrigan, the Terrans had the advantage of long ranged weapons, not to mention he and the High Templar couldn't just summon psi-storms all day long.

After weighing risk against reward, Tassadar decided it was best to retreat for now and come back with a stronger fighting force.

"Enough! Templar, retreat. We will continue this fight another day!"

Without question, the Protoss obeyed his orders and fled into the hallways. The Raiders didn't follow them or even shot. Some of them were even too injured to raise their weapons. At least half of them were dead by Jimenez count, maybe even more.

"We will meet again, Sarah Kerrigan."

"Hmph." Kerrigan didn't answer. She just glared at the retreating form of Tassadar, until he was gone.

"Damn," Jimenez muttered looking around. "Hyperion, prepare the med-bay. We just had a nasty encounter with the Protoss and lost at least half of our men. Half of the rest are too injured or their suits too damaged to fight. We're approaching objective now and then had out."

"...Understood." Came the carefully neutral voice of Raynor. "We've informed the shuttle team. They'll be waiting for you where they dropped you."

"Understood." The connection was broken off and Jimenez found Kerrigan staring at the dead Raider Marines, lying on the ground. The remaining Marines all watched her and Jimenez could feel a cocktail of emotions coming from the remaining troops. He ignored them to the best of his abilities.

"Kerrigan," he spoke up. She didn't react.

"The Computer is right behind this door. We should hurry up, before Duke decides to budge in and be a pain in the ass, like usual."

The Zerg woman sighed. She easily picked up the underlying message, even without connecting her mind to his. It read: "If we don't hurry up, even more, will die."

"Understood." she answered and walked ahead.

"The rest of you get ready to go back. This won't take long."

 **Hangar bay of the Amerigo, 22:30 Board Time**

It was all set up. The Protoss had left the ship, the swarm was distracting their main ships, so the Protoss wouldn't get any stupid ideas, like shooting down the station. And the Terrans? They thought every single Zerg on the ship was dead when in reality it couldn't be further from the truth.

The Overmind even increased his efforts to break Sarah Kerrigan's mental barriers, which would distract her and at the same time prevent her from finding the ambush the nameless Cerebrate had set up. This was his only chance to retrieve his charge. He was sure the Overmind wouldn't give him another one.

Impatiently the Cerebrate waited for the Raiders to finally make an appearance in the hangar bay. Their ships were already waiting for them in outta space. Apparently, the Terrans didn't dare to come in, in fear of facing the other Terran forces.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (two minutes) the familiar sounds of heavy footsteps echoed through the hangar bay, coming directly from one of the hallways. The Cerebrate tensed up inside his cavern on Char. His Zerg mimicked his reaction but stayed hidden under the metal plating of the ground.

The footsteps became louder and louder and after some time, the Zerg could hear voices. "Almost there! Hurry it up! Everything will be nothing if we don't manage to get her to the Hyperion!"

"Why'd she collapse in the first place?"

"The Zerg." The first voice explained. "They really want her and are sending mental nukes her way, so to speak. When Kerrigan tried to reconfigure her brain, she must have left her guard down for a moment and got hit pretty hard. If we don't leave this system soon, she'll be a mess or worse, completely under enemy control."

"No offense, sir, but I'm starting to doubt that this mission was a good idea."

"None was taken, man. None was taken. But with no risk comes no reward."

No risk, no reward? In this case, the Terrans should not have taken the risk was the Cerebrate's opinion. They should have fled when they still had the chance. Now they would all die on this station and soon enough their ship would be destroyed by the might of the swarm.

The first Terrans in their heavy armor arrived, running at full speed. The Cerebrate waited for a couple of seconds before he ordered his Zerglings, Hydralisks and Hunter Killers came out of the ground, completely taking the Raiders by surprise. Now that his Zerg was out, the Cerebrate could see one of the Marines carrying an unconscious Sarah Kerrigan. The Overmind truly could be ruthless if he wanted to be. While these thoughts were going through the Cerebrate's mind, his Zerg had already started slaughtering the Raiders. He would regret not paying closer attention to the fight. Why, well there are two facts one needs to be aware of:

One: The Cerebrate was young and inexperienced. When he set up the ambush, the Zerg basically "piled up" around one spot and burrowed themselves.

Two: Obviously, there were still a few Firebats around. Their suits had the nasty tendency to explode when they got damaged. Now, add to this barrels filled with fuel for spaceships.

As every Gamer knows, you don't have to win a commando type mission with many troops. In fact, usually only one or two "main characters" had to survive the mission. In this case, around 15 Raiders managed to get out of space station alive, not counting Kerrigan or Jimenez. Not a particularly great number, considering how many went in, but this wasn't a game where you just could turn on "easy mode" or "safe scum" your way through. This was real life. You couldn't just turn back time and undo decision you had made. Although the unnamed Cerebrate sure wished he could, since that last stunt cost him all of his carefully preserved Zerg troops.


	4. Chapter 4

**Bridge of the Hyperion**

 **20 Minutes after action**

"Sir, the strike team has returned." Matt Horner informed the wheelchair-bound James Raynor. "Kerrigan is escorted back to her room right as we speak. I also ordered for a mattress to be brought there."

"Thanks, Matt." Raynor nodded in approval. "I just hope we won't have to keep her there for too long. But who am I kidding?" The rebel leader shook his head and rolled inside his wheelchair to the star map."It will probably take a lot of time for the crew to get used to her."

The Captain didn't reply to the comment, knowing that his Commander was right in that regard. Truth to be told, he himself wasn't all that comfortable with Kerrigan onboard, partially because she was a Zerg now and partially because of Raynor. That the two had a thing for each other is pretty much an open secret by now. The officer was sure he wasn't the only one among the rebels who worried that Raynor would let his personal feelings get in the way of making rational decisions. He just hoped he was wrong.

"Lieutenant Jimenez reported sick after the mission." Matt went on. "Apparently his own reconfiguration did a number to the man to the point where he is mentally exhausted."

"Hmm…" Raynor put a hand under his chin, thinking. "Did he say what exactly he...changed inside his brain? Or did he mention any potential side effects?"

But Matt could only shake his head. "He didn't say anything beyond that he felt exhausted. I will consult the crew members and the surviving marines to see if anything in his behavior changed. In that regard, I advise we assign additional guards to Kerrigan."

Raynor frowned at the suggestion but nodded anyways. "That would be for the best I guess. But make sure they are suited up at all times. I am not taking the risk of this virus to spread amongst the entire crew."

"Of course, sir," Matt replied, hiding his relief. It looked like his Commander could still make rational decisions after all.

"How's our little fleet by the way? Are we ready to depart from this rock?"

"Almost sir." Horner summoned up a holo-screen, which showed him the status of the fleet and the Hyperion itself. "Our vessels are either docked onto the Hyperion or have landed in one of our hangar bays. Our navigators are just doing final-"

He couldn't get any farther with his report, as suddenly the alarms of the Hyperion blared throughout the ship, getting the attention of everyone.

"Sirs!" One of the bridge officers shouted. "Scanners show multiple hostiles approaching our position! The Zerg are attacking us!" The officer pressed a button, which then allowed the holo map to show the approaching Zerg. There were a multitude of red triangles coming out of the planet and flying in the direction of the Hyperion and they were fast.

"We don't stand a chance against so many," Matt muttered, before turning towards his crew. "Activate the Warp Drive and get us out of here! Relay a message to all ships that we're about to jump!"

While his crew was busy doing their job, Raynor glared at the Star Map in the middle of the room and watched as the red triangles came closer and closer.

"You want her that bad, huh?" he whispered to himself. "Well too bad. We're out of here."

"Initiating Warp Jump in ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...one...jump!"

Raynor felt the world around him being bend for a split second, just as the officer spoke the last word. A moment later the feeling was gone and the Hyperion flying out of the system.

"Engines seem stable...no malfunction reports...no reports of damage from anywhere...I think we're good to go." The officer sighed in relief and leaned back into his chair.

"It's a good thing we already prepared our retreat," Horner commented, walking up to the officer. The Captain looked over his subordinate on the status screen and quickly went over the data with his eyes. "It seems the Zerg really want to have Kerrigan this bad. I wonder though…" the young man put a hand under his chin and looked downwards, thinking.

"Wonder what?" Raynor asked from his position.

"Well, I was wondering why they took Kerrigan? Why not another ghost? She can't be the first one the Zerg have met." The captain explained himself.

"Hmm, good point." Raynor conceded. "And honestly, I have no idea at this point. I'd ask an expert, but they kind of have the order to kill me on sight." The Commander joked with a hint of dry humor showing. "But we can wonder about that later. For now, we need to find an expert who can help us revert as to whatever the Zerg have done to her. We'll also need to get the resistance up and running, which means we need personal, supplies and most importantly money. Supplies should be easy to get from Deadman's Port. But all the others I'm not sure at the moment. I am open to suggestions."

He spoke towards the crew on the bridge, who all looked at each other for a couple of moments, before one officer spoke up. "The people on the outer planets might be up for a revolt. Their situation hasn't improved a single bit under Mengsk's rule. It's actually gotten worse on some planets with all the new taxes and such."

"Good idea." Raynor nodded. "I want a list of planets who appear to be ready to revolt. Though I doubt we'll be of much help with our current supply status."

"We could continue hitting some outposts." Suggested another one. "They're easy targets and usually have something good stored inside. Minus the food rations of course."

"That will only work for so long." Jim pointed out. "Mengsk is far from dumb. He's going to have an ambush waiting for us at some point."

"Sir, what about your home planet?" Horner asked, but Raynor shook his head.

"No, the people there have enough on their plate. Besides, Mengsk has probably already stationed one or two contingents there just because it is my home planet. He'd probably turn it into a nuclear wasteland as soon as we come into orbit."

"Should we try and locate one of the old families?" Someone else suggested, causing him to get odd looks from the rest of his peers.

"What would you want from them?" Someone asked.

"Well," he shrugged "they're probably pretty pissed that Mengsk took away all of their power. They'd probably be more than happy to support our cause, just 'cause they despise the guy."

"I don't think that is a good idea." Horner opined. "The old families are cowards. The survivors are probably all hiding somewhere at the far edges of the sector. Even if we stumble across one, they either ignore us or sell us out to the Dominion, in the hopes of gaining Mengsk's approval.

"There are still several smaller uprisings across the sector." Said the one who suggested raiding the outposts. "If we help one of them, they might join us."

XXX

 **Later...**

The discussion continued for a few more hours until fatigue started to show among several crew members. Terran bodies weren't really designed to withstand warp travels. As a result, many crewmembers took several naps or simply went early to sleep, in order to reduce the stress put onto their bodies. After the discussions were over, Raynor decided to do just that, but not without visiting a certain someone beforehand. He was escorted by two Space Marines down to Kerrigan's chamber, conveniently ignoring his own rule of wearing suits at all time around her.

Like during his last visit, he went alone inside. He found Kerrigan sitting on a dirty, old mattress, which was slightly ragged with her knees pulled against her chest. It looked like she had been attempting to sleep, as she blinked a couple of times before her eyes adjusted.

"Jim?"

"Hello, darling. How are you feeling?"

"What do you think?" she asked, looking to the side. "Because of me, several of your men died."

"That wasn't your fault, darling. No one could have foreseen the Zerg preparing an ambush like that."

"I should have seen it coming," she growled back, glaring at her lover. "I shouldn't have undone my psychic barriers until after I was off the ship! Hell, I shouldn't have undone them at all!" She stood up. "I am now more dangerous than previously! You should kill me, while you have the chance! The first chance the Overmind gets, he's going to take me over and you know!"

"Then I'll simply have to make sure he won't get this chance," Raynor replied sternly, to which Kerrigan scoffed.

"You're a lovesick idiot, Jim," she said, crossing her arms. "Do you really think you'll find a way to revert this?" she motioned all over her body. "Do you really believe there's someone out there who can "save" me? Face it, Jim, I'm lost."

"You're not lost, Sarah!" Jim's voice sounded a little angrier. "So what if you got infested by that virus? Sarah, you managed to stay yourself. You didn't become a slave of that bug thing! That's a first from what we know! Even if we can't revert this, we might be able to help others to regain their original personality."

To this, Sarah had to laugh. With her new, distorted voice, it sounded kinda sinister.

"Since when have you become such an optimist?"

"Since I have been able to appreciate your naked self." he replied cheekily.

 **XXX**

In the observation room

"Oooooooh!" shouted four marines in full armor, watching the camera feed.

"He did not just say that!"

"He's insane!"

"Whoa, what's she doing?!"

The four watched as Kerrigan stood up and slowly walked up to their Commander. She moved like a supermodel, showing off all of her curves.

"Dude…" one of them briefed out.

As soon as she was right in front of him, she slapped his face hard enough to almost topple Raynor's wheelchair over. She even left three claw marks on his cheeks, which started to bleed.

"OOOOOOHHHH SNAP!" The marines shouted.

"YOU PIG!" They heard her scream through the speakers.

XXX

Back inside the isolation room

Raynor flinched when he touched his wounded cheek with his fingers. Some blood got stuck on said fingers.

"Ouch." he chuckled.

Kerrigan huffed, glaring the man down. "You're impossible, Jim Raynor."

"Yeah, I get like that from time to time." he grinned, ignoring the blood going down his cheek. "But it's good to see you in such high spirits again."

"Urrgh, impossible indeed." the infested terran rubbed her eyes a little. "So, you're really going through with this. Trying to find a way to de-infest me, all the while leading a new revolution. Well, answer me this. How do you suppose people will react, once they find out I am onboard? It will impossible to keep it a secret."

It was Raynor's turn to sigh. "We'll tell them the truth. I don't expect any of them to welcome them with open arms, a lot might even overthink their decision on joining us. But once they're here, we'll tell them we're using you to find a cure for the Zerg virus."

"So, I'll be officially a guinea pig?" she asked with a wry smile. "That plan is bound to fail. Even now I can feel the murderous intents of several crew members without even touching their minds. You're playing a dangerous game, Jim."

Raynor shrugged. "I won't tell them how to feel about you. I won't force them to get to know you either. That's entirely up to them."

"Get to know me?" Sarah echoed. "What? Are you planning play dates with me and your men?"

"Now that you mention it…"

"Just shut up, Jim."

XXX

 **Hangar Bay Z-9, 6 hours later**

Unbeknownst to the Terrans, the Zerg, and even the Aiur Protoss, a fourth party had taken an interest in the newly born Sarah Kerrigan. Prelate Zeratul and his fellow Dark Templar had come to the planet of Char, in order to locate the source of the strong psionic outburst. By the time they arrived, two Terran factions and the Protoss of Aiur had already arrived on the planet, looking for the source themselves. And it appeared as if the faction calling themselves Raynor's Raiders had been successful in retrieving the source, which came in form of an infested Terran named Sarah Kerrigan.

She was a curious case to say the least, as she somehow managed to withstand the will of the Overmind and even fight against him. Zeratul and his fellow templar had watched her fight on the Amerigo and undo something that had been done to her mind when she was being trained as a special operative. The increase in her power had not gone unnoticed by the Protoss exiles.

"The security is laughable at best." spoke a young templar. "Killing her will not be a problem."

"Patience, young one." an older templar woman spoke. "We do not know her full capabilities as of yet. A rash decision often leads to certain doom."

The younger dark templar let out the equivalent to a mental huff but didn't dare to say a rebuttal. Instead, he continued on with his observations.

"As I was saying, the security is laughable at best. The ship is highly understaffed, the warriors undisciplined, many of which are drugging themselves with alcohol on certain times, some even while they are at work! Not to mention they are very vulgar." The young one shook his head. "It escapes my mind's grasp how these people have not been fallen prey to the Zerg on Char."

Zeratul nodded, acknowledging the young one's report. He turned his head towards another templar. "Sharaz. What have you been able to observe?"

The old, muscular dark templar crossed his arms. "I can confirm the observations of Akron. With few exceptions, those men and women are heavily lacking in discipline and diligence. The one who is the most representing a true warrior is one Captain Matt Horner. The comparable young terran always goes after the proper procedure and manages to make the other Terrans to at least behave like warriors. After an examination of his mind, I found out that he's for Terran standards and extremely talented pilot, who has fought many battles, before becoming a commanding officer. His warriors appear to have great respect for his flying skills and space battle tactics."

Zeratul nodded and turned his head to a female templar. "Sister Calderis, were you successful in gaining information about this particular group of Terrans?"

"I did, prelate," Calderis answered. "These Terrans are a newly founded rebel group, who call themselves "Raynor's Raiders", their name coming after their commander James Raynor. Previously, this group was part of another rebel group, called the Sons of Korhal. After scouring various minds, it became clear that the leader of the Sons of Korhal, one Arcturus Mengsk had manipulated many of the humans here into following him blindly. His goal was it to overthrow the previous government, which was corrupted to the very core. However, it turned out he only did this so he could install himself as the Emperor of the Terrans. Naturally, after the betrayal, the Terrans gathered to form a new rebel group. So far their exploits have been limited to destroying a few outposts and hiding in the shadows until they were found. It seems their Commander wasn't prepared for the high responsibility at the time."

Zeratul let the information sink in and storing it away for later.

"Curiously, he began to take action, once he received the same psychic transmission as we did. After prying a little further into his mind, I found out that the infested Terran is also a former member of the Sons of Korhal."

Zeratul rose an eyebrow, but else didn't comment.

"On orders of Arcturus Mengsk, she has fought our brethren from Aiur, in order to allow the Zerg to overrun the old main planet of the Terrans called Tarsonis. His plan worked, but he left the infested Terran on the planet to die. It was at this time that James Raynor and his followers broke away from the Sons of Korhal. He firstly tried to save the female Terran from the planet, but couldn't find her. He assumed her dead and began his own campaign against Arcturus Mengsk."

"What a despicable being." Sharaz would have spat if he heads a mouth. "Throwing away the life of your warriors for your own personal gains, as if they are nothing more than figurines in a game. If I were in James Raynor's position, I would have slit the other Terran's throat."

"James Raynor's motives seem to go a little further than simple revenge." Calderis continued. "He appears to genuinely believe he can create a better place for his fellow Terrans with his actions. Also, he seems to have strong feelings towards the infested female Terran."

"It shouldn't be surprising," Akron commented. "Both belonged to the same rebel group before the betrayal. They must have fought together on the battlefield and built a comradeship throughout their hardships."

Calderis eyes flickered in amusement. "Actually, he-"

But Calderis was interrupted by a pair of doors opening, allowing two terran crewmembers to enter. The group of Dark Templar immediately disappeared into the shadows and watched the two men, who wore the uniforms of the technician caste.

"How can you eat that stuff, man?! That's just….just….!"

"Oh, shut up." the second one replied. "It's perfectly safe! Hell, back with the Sons of Korhal, I was under quarantine for a month and they couldn't find anything wrong with me."

The two men split up. One walked over to a machine for lifting crates, the other towards an elevator and started typing on the console.

"That doesn't change the fact that it's just gross! How the fuck can you eat the arms of an Hydralisk?!"

All the Protoss froze up.

"By grilling it and dumping it in sauce. I swear that stuff tastes better than Earth Chickens!"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" The man operating the crate lifting machine asked. Incidentally, the Protoss wanted to ask the same thing. The man with the lifting machine walked towards a stack of crates and checked for their labels. The other one at the elevator in the meantime frowned because the machinery didn't react to his commands.

"Oh, chill out man. At least I'm not fucking with an alien chick, like our commander."

The man on the crates found the right crate and put it on his machine.

"You actually believe that? I'm pretty sure Raynor is smarter than to get it on with her."

"Right, I forgot you were on another ship, before Tarsonis. Ah, crap!" The technician cursed when sparks came flying out of the console. He shielded his eyes with his arm and quickly stepped away. A few seconds later, it stopped and only smoke came out of the machine.

"You alright?" his colleague asked.

"Yeah. But it looks like this one is busted." he motioned with his arms at the elevator. "I'm going to get my tools. Wait here."

"Sure. Hey, what do you mean with I was on the other ship? What does that have to do with the prisoner."

The other technician stopped his hand from touching the door console and turned around. He crossed his arms and gave his partner a hard look. "Back when Mengsk was in charge, Raynor had something going on with a ghost chick. That ghost chick is the very same woman that's locked up down there."

"W-WHAT?!" The other man exclaimed. "You're shitting me, right?"

"Not this time dude. Not this time." the man at the door shook his head. "I don't know much, just that she used to be Mengsk second hand until he dropped her like the rest of us." He looked to the side, his frown deepening. "The Zerg must have gotten her on Tarsonis and infested her like they do with every other terran they capture."

"Dude, this sucks balls. Speaking of her, how come she didn't try to murder us, when we got her back?"

"Who knows? I'm an engineer, not a biologist. I heard the Commander hopes to find a way to cure her somehow. Though honestly? I wouldn't be surprised if we see baby aliens running around the ship in nine months or so." the engineer smirked.

"Dude, who's the sick one now?"

Instead of answering, the engineer disappeared through the door, leaving his colleague alone with the Protoss. The man sighed a little and placed his ass on the crate he had been transporting and waited. The Protoss in the meantime silently decided that they should hold their meeting somewhere else on the ship.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hyperion Quarantine Bay, 13:00 Bord Time**

The next two weeks, the Hyperion was stuck in warp travel. After the mixed results of their last two missions, it was nice for a routine to return to the Raiders. Death was nothing new to them, botched up missions happened. Granted most were pretty uncomfortable with having a Zerg around on the ship, but nobody tried to think about this little fact right now. Well, most tried not to. There were, of course, those that blamed Kerrigan for their losses, even more, vocalized their concerns or showed hostility of having her around. The Commander addressed those issue as fast as they came up with a simple statement through the broadcast.

"You're here because you want to be here. If you don't want to be here anymore, you can always leave as soon as we reach Deadman's Port."

There was nothing more to be said. Raynor knew that more than a few people would leave sooner or later, if not at Deadman's (because let's be honest, they'd be nuts to leave and live in this shit-hole), then on another planet.

Luckily so far nobody asked how Jim got the information about Sarah's whereabouts. Most likely due to the fact that the Dominion and the Protoss decided to show up on this particular planet as well. They probably figured the two enemy factions had the same intel as the Commander.

Speaking of the Commander, despite his temporary disability, he had been rather busy. Mainly he had been visiting her every day, mainly around lunch time, bringing her those god forsaken rations. Sadly there wasn't much else to go around, but even as a Zerg Sarah needed to eat, right? Well… technically.

Sarah was still able to eat "normal" food, but for some reason didn't require as much or at least it seemed that way. She never complained about hunger, meaning either she was hiding it, which was unlikely, or her transformed body really didn't need as much. Another thing that was noticeable on the third day was that she never needed to use the bathroom. Neither of them was sure how that worked, as neither of them was a biologist or xenologist in this case. Kerrigan was just glad she didn't need to go into the filthy bathrooms with her bare feet. She was still getting used to walking around like that. Not that she had exactly much space to walk around.

Jim would have loved to let her out of the quarantine bay, but he would be an idiot to do so. He knew it, the crew knew it, everybody knew it: Sarah Kerrigan was a risk to even have onboard. Her very breath just might release the spores/virus/bacteria necessary to infect more people. Which is why Raynor ordered his crew to always wear suits when they were stationed as guards for the quarantine bay. A rule which he broke every single time he came to visit her.

During those times they didn't talk about their current situations, their plans or what the future might hold in store for them. Rather the two were talking about the past. To be more precise, Jim Raynor was the one who did the talking. Mostly because Sarah's life consisted of being trained to be a Ghost Operative, but also because she didn't really feel like it.

Right now Jim was telling Sarah the story of when he and other teenagers were organizing a slightly less than legal race, consisting of cars made out of everything the teens could get their hold on.

"So I managed to take the lead, think I can get ahead of the rest, but then there's this idiot who rams me from the side and rams me into a dune! Worse, Hank just then had the stupid idea to activate his rockets, hits the vehicle that crashed into me at full speed and then flies right over my head in a somersault. The guy was so close to taking off my head!" Raynor made a gesture with his fingers, indicating that the other car had only been inches away from his head. Sarah chuckled a little, the images of Raynor's vivid memory appearing inside her head.

"Ah good times, good times really. Too bad the Kel-Morian wars came around a couple of months later and we were forced to cancel the races. Vespene regulation and all that."

"Mhm." Sarah nodded, remembering the Kel-Morian wars. In a way, it had been good times for her as well. Since the Kel-Morians were and still are a multitude of ways, behind in technology, she had a rather easy time taking out her targets.

"Anyways, I-" Whatever Raynor wanted to say got stuck in his throat, when his ear communicator went on.

"What is it, Matt?" he asked, pressing the little device. The Commander listened to what the officer had to say, nodding absentmindedly every now and then. "All right. I'll be there soon."

Raynor deactivated his communicator and turned his attention back to Sarah. "Sorry about that. Need to cut this one short. We're gonna be arriving at Deadman's in one hour."

"I see." Sarah nodded, hiding her disappointment perfectly. "Take care, Jim."

"Oh don't worry, I can hardly go down like this." he motioned over his body and his wheelchair. "No, I'm just coordinating the entire thing. Normally I would leave this to Matt, but I swear if I don't do anything soon, I'm going to go crazy."

Sarah chuckled again. "Yeah, I know how this feels."

Raynor's face fell a little at the implication. "Oh...sorry."

"It's alright." Kerrigan waved off. "It gives me plenty of time to get… accustomed to everything. Especially those." She looked back and wiggled her bony wings a little bit. "You don't know how weird it is to wake up with two additional limbs attached to you."

"I guess…" Raynor replied, taking another look at the wings. They were pretty weird. "Alright, see you later."

XXX

 **Deadman's Port, 15:00 Local Time**

For the people of Deadman's Port having someone like Raynor's Raiders visiting their godforsaken port was nothing knew. Rebels, pirates, thugs, murderers, slaves… they all ended up here. The Dominion either didn't care or did not have the resources to deal with the low lives that resided here. This in return, of course, made this planet more than just a tad bit dangerous to be on.

It should come to no surprise then that the Raiders came down fully equipped with guns and suits. It made it a little hard to go around without accidentally stomping someone, but at least it had an intimidation effect on the locals and stopped some idiots from trying to do something stupid.

Still, even the suits couldn't protect the Marines from the stench, which seemed to be reeking from the very street they were walking on. There were people leaning against walls, looking like they haven't eaten in weeks, some poor sab further down the street was calling for help, before he got beaten up by a really big person with a metal arm. On the other side, a woman got dragged into a car, which then sped away, running over a child while doing so. Yup, it was a slow afternoon in Deadman's Port.

The Raiders could observe everything from their transport ships, which landed on a rundown platform of a rundown port. The fact that the ground didn't give in after their ships landed could be considered a small miracle. Twenty Marines in total exited the ships, with nineteen of them immediately getting to work in preparing them to be loaded. Number twenty went to a rough looking woman, who was waiting in front of a vehicle that was in fairly good condition for this planet's standards. She wasn't fazed in the least when she needed to look up to the visor of the marine suit. The marine for his part handed over a holo-pad to the woman, which she accepted. She quickly glanced over the display, before returning her attention to the marine.

"It'll take about a day to get everything." The woman informed the Marine. "I hope you can pay for all of that. It's not every day somebody asks for supplies for an entire Battlecruiser."

"We can pay. John?" The Marine called out to another one behind him.

"Yeah?" the marine called John answered.

"The payment."

"Right, right."

John walked into one of the transport ships and came back out a minute later with a huge fork-lift-truck. Three huge boxes were stacked on top of one another, their contents making clattering noises as they were being transported to the woman. Once there, the first marine opened the top crate and revealed it to be filled with thousands of tiny crystals, which filled the crate to the brim.

The woman took out one of the crystals and examined it critically with her very own eyes. After a minute or two, she took out a scanning device from her pockets and held it in front of the crystal. A green light emitted out of the device, surrounding the crystal for a couple of seconds. After the light disappeared, the woman went over the readings the device got and was seemingly satisfied.

"Very well, gentlemen." She put the crystal into her own pocket. "We have a deal. Please put the crates back into your ship, until I'm back with safe means of transportation. Too many folks here try to make quick money in some rather...unethical ways."

"We'll be here. As long as you don't forget to bring our stuff."

"I'll work as fast as I can, but as I said, it'll take a whole day until I have everything assembled. Please be patient until then." With those words, the woman turned around and walked into her vehicle. John in the meantime closed the crate again and transported the goods back into the ship. The first marine followed him, but stayed outside, inspecting the work progress. John returned only ten seconds later, opening his visor.

"That sure went better than expected. She was actually polite."

"They're polite as long as you have the cash and the guns." The first Marine explained. "People here are not stupid. They keep up with the latest news both official and unofficial and keep taps on potential customers. Mengsk was actually a long time customer here, though I doubt he ever set foot on the planet itself. You know how the asshole was."

"Yeah." John nodded. "Just yesterday I found a picture we overlooked in one of the hallways. Shouldn't have burned it, now that I think about. I might have found a buyer somewhere."

"I doubt it."

A gunshot could be heard in the distance.

"People here are more interested in weapons and stuff. Or crystals"

"Speaking of the shiny bits, where the hell did we get those?" John pointed with his thumb back towards the crates.

"Who do you think is the previous owner of the ship?"

XXX

 **Hyperion Hangar Bay 12-B, 12 hours later**

For the past twelve hours, the transport ships had been coming and going to the Hyperion, bringing the goods to the battlecruiser. The teams on board had been busy transporting everything to the right storage compartment and occasionally repairing failing equipment and machinery, which only slowed the entire process down.

As they had been for the previous weeks, one of the dark templars was carefully observing the humans, their behavior and the way they worked. Calderis could only shake her head at how ungainly the Terrans moved around. Especially their bulky machinery looked like it should have broken down ages ago, yet somehow was still working properly.

"Alright, give me the next crate!"

"Fuel her up already! I have to fly a couple of more times today!"

"The door's jammed again!"

"Dude, watch it! You almost smashed me!"

"Storage D is full! We move on to E. And remember to get the food to the kitchen and not anywhere else!"

Calderis rubbed her right ear from the constant yelling. That was something else that baffled her: how the Terrans were able to work when everyone was constantly making so much noise. Well, truth to be told, they didn't. There was no clear-cut organization in the Hyperion crew, aside from the military aspect. Sure most of them worked with the Sons of Korhal before becoming Raiders, but back then they had a clear cut organization. Here? No one had claimed the title of chief engineer or storage foreman. They were literally just a bunch of workers, engineers, and volunteers from other stations thrown together, trying to get the job done. This didn't result in total chaos, but a fair amount nonetheless. Work considerably slowed down with people just going around, almost without any regards t co-workers in terms of staying out of the way.

For one man this chaos was quite the blessing. Egon Stetmann slowly but surely opened one of the crates that had been carelessly put to aside along with several other crates. He was both trembling and breathing heavily, due to the lack of oxygen inside the box. The scrawny man's eyes darted around, observing the men hard at work. But he didn't dare to just stare at them for too long, for he knew these were rebels. Raynor's Raiders weren't around for long, yet were slowly but surely gathering a reputation for themselves. Emperor Mengsk propaganda was only adding fuel to the fire.

Reputation aside, the point was Egon had heard of them of how they destroyed a multitude of outposts and slaughtered hundreds of soldiers. Naturally, the Raiders would have no problem shooting his brains all over the floor. He needed to hide for the time being and then plan his next step.

Battle Cruisers were big. Surely there was a place for him to "settle down" for the time being, until he could find a way to get off the ship, right? With that in mind, the scrawny man carefully exited the crate and ended up face first on the floor. Luckily his glasses still were intact, though he did suffer from a nosebleed. Thanks to the noise going on no one had heard his little stunt.

That doesn't mean that no one had noticed him, however.

Calderis watched as the new human did his best to sneak around behind the boxes, which was a challenge, to say the least with a number of tools sticking out of his pockets. He was making his way as quickly as possible to a side door that no one was using. And because the other Terrans were getting in each other's way all the time, no one noticed the intruder making his way around the ship.

Since it was obvious that Calderis had nothing new to learn from the crew working in the hangar, she followed the unknown human towards the door. Said human, an Egon Stetmann as the Protoss learned through his mind, tapped with his fingers against a panel, causing the door to swing open with a *whoosh*. If any of the other humans heard it, they didn't care, probably expecting just another crew member to enter or exit the hangar.

In the hallways, Stetmann at first walked at a firm and steady pace, that is until he arrived at the first crossing. He hesitated, looking left and right, unable to decide whether to go left or right. The Protoss secretly observing him, expected him to stand around for long enough to be captured. But as it turned out, he had some kind of plan all along.

Egon took out a little handheld device and began typing on it. Calderis looked over his shoulder and saw him typing in a for humans complicated code. Not that the Protoss could understand it, but that was only because she wasn't all that familiar with Terran technology. After a minute of typing, the screen on the small display changed from a lot of text to a map. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was a map of the ship. A little triangle showed the current position of Stetmann.

The young man quickly scrolled through the map, switching floors with two arrows on the side. Special rooms were even named by the device itself, like the bridge, sleeping quarters, the mess hall and so on. After some searching he found a storage room that was marked as "unused" by the device, using the information it gathered from the ship's computer. Little did he know that this information was a little bit outdated, but what could possibly go wrong?

Stetmann marked his destination and told his device to calculate the fastest way there. With that done he took the left path. Calderis followed him swiftly, having no problem keeping up with the man. At every corner, he stopped, pressed himself against the wall and "sneakily" looked around the corner. Read "sneakily" as in he stuck his head so far out, it could be completely seen. The Protoss wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry.

As Stetmann expected, the Battlecruiser was a pretty big ship. He only just now realized that big means really big! While walking through endless hallways, he checked the device every now and then, including how far he had to walk. He stopped dead in his tracks, almost causing Calderis to slam into him when he realized that he had to walk several kilometers to reach his destination! The scrawny man groaned and slumped down against the wall. The tools inside his pockets made some clattering noises and a few even fell out. Yet he didn't bother to put them back into his pockets immediately. Instead, he put a hand into one of his pockets and began rummaging through it. Even more, stuff fell out, more than should be actually able to fit in. Finally, the man took out a plastic bottle filled with water and greedily drank its contents, knowing that this would be a long day.


End file.
